The Contender (2000)
Overview
The vice president is dead, and as the president makes his choice for a replacement, a secret contest of wills is being waged by a formidable rival. When Senator Laine Hanson is nominated as the first woman in history to hold the office, hidden agendas explode into a battle for power.
Cast
Joan Allen
Laine Hanson
Gary Oldman
Shelly Runyon
Jeff Bridges
President Jackson Evans
Christian Slater
Reginald Webster
Sam Elliott
Kermit Newman
William Petersen
Jack Hathaway
Saul Rubinek
Jerry Tolliver
Philip Baker Hall
Oscar Billings
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CinemaSerf
Joan Allen is an American senator who is nominated to replace a recently deceased Vice-President by Jeff Bridges ("President Evans"). Once her confirmation hearing begins, she finds her rather interesting private life under the scrutiny of hostile committee chairman Gary Oldman who is determined to expose every aspect of her life - past and present - to the public. Oscar-nominated Allen is good as the feisty, intelligent, senator but the rest of this is all rather lacklustre and frequently overly contrived, with plenty of dramatic events designed to enhance the plot rather then create any sense of plausibility. Against the backdrop of the Clinton impeachment trial, the film had a certain resonance and it certainly does not show the constitutional processes, nor the male-dominated American establishment's approach to women, in a good light, but the older it gets, the less that causal impact it has and is now little better than a run-of-the-mill political drama that struggles to distinguish itself.
